We have learned more about the Venezuelan migrant being questioned by Chicago police in connection with the murder of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, who was shot this week in a seemingly random and unprovoked attack on the Loyola Beach pier.
CWB Chicago reported Saturday evening that Chicago police arrested a 25-year-old man Friday around 9 p.m. while executing a search warrant at an apartment building in the 6800 block of North Sheridan Road, less than two blocks from the pier in Rogers Park. The search turned up a firearm that was sent to a ballistics laboratory to determine if it fired the bullet that struck Gorman, who was killed by a single shot to the torso, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday that they had found no evidence of any provocation or altercation before the shooting. When Gorman and her friends encountered the gunman at the pier light beacon at 1:11 a.m. Thursday, he was wearing a balaclava or other face covering. He fired once, hitting Gorman in the torso, although CPD initially reported she had been shot in the head. Detectives used footage from multiple cameras to track the suspect to the apartment complex, where additional footage captured him without a face covering and someone associated with the building recognized him, sources said.
We are not naming the man because he has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with Gorman’s death.
Court records show he was arrested in mid-June 2023 for allegedly shoplifting $132 worth from the Macy’s at 111 North State Street in the Loop. Arrest records show he listed 1222 West Touhy Avenue in Rogers Park as his home address at the time — the address of Leone Beach Park, where the fieldhouse had been converted into a migrant shelter by City Hall. Leone Beach Park forms the northern end of Loyola Beach.
According to court records, he was released from custody “according to the rules of court,” a bail-era procedure in which people accused of non-violent crimes were released on their own recognizance. He never appeared in court again, records show. After failing to appear for the first time in July 2023, Judge Peter Gonzalez granted a 30-day stay. When a Macy’s representative showed up on that date and the man again failed to appear, Gonzalez issued an arrest warrant demanding a $50 deposit to be released from jail. He was never caught.
Questions also arise about statements officials made after Gorman was killed.
Ald. Maria Hadden (50th) told her constituents Friday morning that “the investigation to date has led police to believe there is no broader threat to neighbors or the Loyola community.” Loyola’s president said Thursday morning that “there is no ongoing threat to our campus community.” But both statements were made while the killer remained unidentified, at large, armed and apparently willing to kill without motive or provocation.
Gorman’s family issued a statement Saturday morning, walking back a Sun-Times headline that characterized her death as “WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME.”
“She was exactly where she should have been: close to campus, surrounded by friends, where she lived her life,” the family said, noting that she and her friends had gone to the lakeshore in hopes of seeing the Northern Lights. “What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not an abstraction. This is the loss of a daughter. The loss of a sister. The loss of a future full of milestones that now will never come. Our family is forever changed.”
“Sheridan was our daughter, our sister and the heart of our family. She was full of life, full of kindness and full of the love that she gave freely to everyone around her. She made people feel seen. She made people feel valued. Whether it was her friends, her family or someone she had just met, Sheridan had a way of leaving people better than she found them.”
“Sheridan deserved a full life. She deserved the future that was taken from her. We will not allow her to be remembered as just another story. She was extraordinary and she will always be loved.”
“We cannot accept a world where moments like this become something people become accustomed to. We cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to violence. When we begin to accept these tragedies as inevitable, we all become vulnerable to them. Apathy is not harmless – it allows these moments to repeat themselves.”
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